Buyer Beware: Do not do business with Midphase, Zak Boca or Dan Ushman.

Run by no other than Zak (Zachary) Boca and Dan Ushman, MIDPHASE is the WORST WEBHOSTING company I have ever encountered in my entire life. I repeat. Do *NOT*, under any circumstances, buy a webhosting account with MidPhase. Even my gurlfriend Michael K. of Dlisted.com will agree with me on this one.

To be honest with you, I don’t like trash-talking companies on my blog but I really have had it with them. After 5 months of drama, I might as well share my experience to as many people as possible so hopefully, nobody else will go through the same ordeal I had with webhosting company.

Here’s the 411 on them: Midphase is a webhosting company formed by Zak (Zachary) Boca and Dan Ushman in 2003 from their dorm rooms and a $2,000 investment on their credit cards. Fast forward a few years later, they have over 50,000 customers supported from two offices and two datacenters.

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SUMMARY

I signed up for an account with Midphase on August 30, 2006. They suspended my account because of their internal policy that I wasn’t CLEARLY made aware of when I originally signed up because I was misled to believe one thing. After many, many emails to various people in their organization and much mucho bullshit from their staff in a span of 5 months, I still haven’t received my refund. I know around $150 ain’t that much but I’m not gonna give $150 to someone I’m not getting anything back. What am I, a cash machine?

Unless it’s charity, of course.

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IN-DEPTH

August 30, 2006* I signed up for their "ProPHASE" webhosting account as a separate place where I can host images that are linked on Bryanboy.com. I had lots of bandwidth problems last year because of the vast amount of people visiting my blog. One of the reasons why I decided to sign up with them is that they offer accounts with a generous (3.5GB) disk space and and, at that time, a really good bandwidth offer — I can’t remembver whether it was 950GB or "UNMETERED BANDWIDTH" (which, BTW is sooo MISLEADING… more on this later) as advertised on their website.

Between Sept 4 – 9, 2006Spent a few days moving files from my old server to new server.

September 10, 2006The first day I started "using" my account.

I sent them a support ticket telling them my website is down. I received a reply from Alex Shevchuk stating they "were rebooting the server" and "there are some problems with the http service".

September 11, 2006I received an email from Alexander Morozov about my account. [here]

September 13/14, 2006

I telephoned technical support for further clarification/because my site was still down. According to the person I spoke to, Midphase suspended my website, NOT because of my disk quota and bandwidth limits (I was still within them) but because of the fact that my account has "been using more than 10% of their server’s resources".

Like what I said, I signed up because I saw on their website that they offered good bandwidth, at least better than what I had. To someone who isn’t really a techie like me, I had the impression it meant I could have lots and lots of visitors on my website. I even checked the stats on my control panel with them and my bandwidth wasn’t really excessive. If anything, it was WITHIN THE LIMITS of what was offered to me.

NOWHERE ON THEIR SIGN UP PAGES SAID THAT THEY’RE GONNA SUSPEND YOUR ACCOUNT IF YOU REACHED MORE THAN 10% OF THEIR RESOURCES. It’s not even linked on those pages.

I even replicated the sign up process just now. Here they are step-by-step.

The only place where you can see this teeny tiny 10% clause is on the "Terms of Service" link from their home page. [here]

September 15 – 22, 2006My website was still down. Their tech support said that I should move to a Virtual Private Server/Dedicated Server account. According to thhim, it may take 2-3 days for everything to be complete and for my site to be live. I said yes.

A few hours after I received the confirmation emails later that day, I made the decision to just cut my ties with Midphase and just switch with another webhost. Afterall, for around 2 weeks my account was close to nonfunctional, the staff aren’t really that helpful and everything was just a disaster. It would be easier for me to setup a new account with a new provider than stay with Midphase.

Here is the confirmation that they have received my account cancellation request on September 16, 2006. Take note of the date. Subtract 12 hours because I’m in the Philippines. [here]

Later that day, a string of emails came from Mark at their Cancellations Department. I replied to them all.

Take note of my last 2 emails. I sent them one on September 16 and one on September 18, 2006 and I received no response from them. [here]

I also received an invoice from them for US$0 on September 16 and I replied on September 21, 2006 telling them I have not received a refund as of yet. [here]

September 22, 2006I sent them a super lengthy email because so far I have NOT received any replies or emails about the status of my account or my refund. [here]

September 23 – November 30, 2006Que horror. Take note of the series of emails that was exchanged between us and all the bullshit they gave me in a span of 2 months. THIS COMPANY IS REALLY SHADY! I’M TELLING YOU — SHADY!!!!!!! [here]

Brian said that he elevated my account to "911 status". BRIAN HARMATUK IF YOUR COMPANY WAS 911 EVERYONE WOULD BE FRIGGIN DEAD BY NOW!

14 days to cancel an account?

Unable to refund to credit card because of "some reason"?

Refund can take 2 and 4 weeks "to be received" from November 18, 2006?

Refund to be sent via a check in the mail? WTF!!!!!

HOW HARD IS IT TO REFUND A FUCKING MASTERCARD? THE SAME MASTERCARD I USED TO PURCHASE MY WEBHOSTING ACCOUNT? IT SHOULDN’T TAKE MORE THAN 30 SECONDS, NO?

My biggest mistake here was the fact that I should’ve just disputed the charge with my credit card company. Unfortunately, the Midphase charge came just right before my cut-off date and when September 15 came, I already paid the balance in FULL! I tried to dispute it with my bank around mid-October and the bank won’t let me because it was already late!!!

The last email I sent them (at least on this batch) was November 30, 2006 asking them where my refund is.

December 13, 2006 – January 17, 2007They emailed me on December 13, 2006 telling me my refund is being processed and my check will go out by December 19, 2006.

1) DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES SIGN UP WITH MIDPHASE. THEY ARE THE WORST WEBHOSTING PROVIDER IN THE WORLD.

2) Sure… they have a "30-day" money-back guarantee but tell me, where is my money? It’s been 5 MONTHS!!!! I repeat, 5 MONTHS! I’m not gonna give $150 to fat hairy bitches like these bastards. I’d rather give it to starving people in Africa… or get a pedicure!

3) I have a feeling Midphase is being run by 1 and only 1 person only and his name is Alexander. My god, looking at all the emails I got, there’s just too many Alexanders going on: "Alexander Morozov", "Alexander Ilnitsky", "Alex Shevchuk". If you’re gonna pretend you outsource support to Russia/former republics, please use other names like "Snejana Onopka", "Natasha Poly", "Natalia Vodianova" and "Eugenia Volodina".

4) Have you been victimized by Midphase? DON’T WASTE TIME! File a complaint straight away. If you don’t get your shit resolved from them within a week or two weeks, just file a complain with the following authorities straight away:

BBB (Better Business Bureau)

Illinois State Attorney General

Your credit card company (dispute the charge!)

One of the biggest mistakes I made is that I let Midphase drag this for sooo long and I took everything they said SERIOUSLY. I should’ve filed a complaint with the above-mentioned authorities sooner rather than now.

I’m telling y’all… MIDPHASE IS THE WORST WEBHOST PROVIDER ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET.

I probably won’t get a refund now that I shared all this stuff but you know what… at least y’all could learn from my experience with a company who doesn’t stick by their word. You really don’t know how fucking glad I am to switch to my current providers, Blue Host, back in September, instead of staying in Midphase. The people at Blue Host have been amazing (so far) and I barely had any problems with them. Ok, maybe one or two problems but the service is good and they really stand by their word.

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21 Comments

Bryan you priceless cunt!
They woud be sooooo mad if they read that bunanzá!! But I’m sorry to say that I cannot give you any symptahy, because you still haven’t replied to my draw on fashion freak berken idea. fine.
If you really want us to break up, then just keep on breaking my heart.
you fucking imelda marcôs¡

Bryanboy shares his experiences with MidPhase. Its a case of the Shared Hosting scam striking again, the one where by so-called high use shared hosting packages arent really because usually buried somewhere in the fine print (never in an …

You get what you pay for. You really should have been on a Dedicated Account if you were getting all this traffic. Otherwise you arent even taking your own site, which I take it is a business seriously.
Once you start hosting that much traffic its a business. Think about it. You don’t run a restaurant out of your house do you?
It just won’t work. Your sink isn’t good enough. It’s going to get clogged up. So why try doing the same with a webhosting company.
The same thing would have happened at any shared hosting environment.
I use MidPhase and I’ve been nothing but happy. That’s after dealing with Dreamhost.

Yeah, Bluehost is as good as any, and it’s really hard to tell with lesser known hosting companies regarding their customer service, and if they’re working in the basement of their parent’s house…
Don’t apologize for this post not being the usual… a blog is a blog, it’s your right..
And even if I don’t agree with some of your views on life in general, this is something I can back you up on…

i work for a large webhost so i can tell you that the words “charge back” typically ring fear in the hearts of the accounting department because it’s a pretty annoying process. especially since this is a pretty small home grown operation they probably don’t want to deal with the bullshit or paperwork. if they neglect to respond or file the appropriate papers, it pretty much defaults to you. caveat — i’m not sure how this works for international customers and what rights they are particularly afforded… i do believe it is a bit different, but they might not know! might be time to consider a dedicated server or a more scalable option.

Bryan you priceless cunt!
They woud be sooooo mad if they read that bunanzá!! But I’m sorry to say that I cannot give you any symptahy, because you still haven’t replied to my draw on fashion freak berken idea. fine.
If you really want us to break up, then just keep on breaking my heart.
you fucking imelda marcôs¡
i envy you. not!

Bryan you priceless cunt!
They woud be sooooo mad if they read that bunanzá!! But I’m sorry to say that I cannot give you any symptahy, because you still haven’t replied to my draw on fashion freak berken idea. fine.
If you really want us to break up, then just keep on breaking my heart.
you fucking imelda marcôs¡
i envy you. NOT!

I feel ya. They just have the worst customer service when it comes to money. I requested money back on the 30th day after I signed up,and they wrote me back telling me to go to a cancellation page, and then a few days later, they canceled my account, but told me they could not give me my money back because it was past the 30 days. Apparently, my request to the CUSTOMER SERVICE did not count as cancellation ! F*CKERS.. they shall have nothing but server breakdowns in the next 666 days… so anyone reading this…don’t do business with them.